Surfboard

POP MUSIC Norah Jones In support of her fourth album, "The Fall," Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Norah Jones presents an evening of rootsy torch songs. British singer-songwriter Corinne Bailey Rae, who in the past few years has become almost as much of a concert draw as Jones, will be opening. Santa Barbara Bowl , 1122 N. Milpas St., Santa Barbara. 7 p.m. $48.50-$73.50. (805) 962-7411. www.sbbowl.org . EVENTS The Art of Surfboard Shaping For the dedicated, surfing is more than a sport — it's a spiritual pursuit, and that means surfboard shapers like Scott Anderson are akin to shamans.

Surfing's dirty secret is easy to find in the drab enclave of San Clemente known as the surf ghetto, where the ocean breeze is spiked with the sweet smell of chemicals and men wearing flip-flops and coated with white dust search for magic inside blocks of toxic foam. Joey Santley is looking for something equally elusive: an environmentally friendly surfboard. Or at least one with a carbon footprint that's less titanic. "A 'green surfboard' is inherently an oxymoron at this point," said Santley, 44, a frenetic surfboard shaper and entrepreneur.

T.J. Houshmandzadeh isn't the first NFL player to complain that his rating on a Madden video game is too low. But Houshmandzadeh has decided to do something about it. He says he's boycotting the game. Houshmandzadeh, who ranks sixth among wide receivers in the upcoming Madden 10, told ESPN Radio's Colin Cowherd that he's bothered by his overall rating of 91 (out of 100) and says his yards-per-catch numbers were dictated by the game plan of his former team, the Cincinnati Bengals.

A 30-year-old Mexican national was arrested while trying to smuggle 24 pounds of marijuana ashore on a surfboard, the U.S. Border Patrol said. The suspect was spotted Sunday morning paddling north about 200 yards off Imperial Beach, near the Mexican border. When agents ordered the surfer to come ashore, he threw a blue duffel bag into the water, the Border Patrol said. Agents went into the water to make the arrest.

U.S. Border Patrol agents on Wednesday discovered 36 pounds of marijuana concealed inside a surfboard that washed up on a beach near the border. The blue board had been hollowed out and glued back together after being packed with marijuana, according to the Border Patrol. Agents found the surfboard while on routine patrol at Friendship Park, which abuts the border with Tijuana. The drugs had a street value of $29,360, authorities said. There were no arrests. -- Richard Marosi

Eyeing the foam plank in front of him, Guy Okazaki envisions the lines and angles that help a surfboard glide across the face of a wave. He then begins shaping the sides -- first with a heavy electric grinder, then with a plane. Two hours later, he's hand-sanding his creation, which now resembles a sleek, 6-foot-long, high-performance surfboard. For more than 30 years, Okazaki has earned a living making surfboards in Venice. He learned the craft as a boy watching his father and two friends -- surfing legends Dewey Weber and Harold Iggy -- shape heavy longboards in an abandoned garage near Venice Beach.

When Clark Foam Inc. in Laguna Niguel shut down, it looked like Harold Walker would catch a break. Clark Foam had been the chief maker of blanks -- the cores of most surfboards -- and Walker Foam Inc. moved to fill the void. The workforce at the factory in Wilmington quadrupled, and Walker added a second shift to meet the surge in demand.

Dorian Paskowitz, the American surfer credited with introducing the sport to Israel in the 1950s, returned this week with a new idea: using donated surfboards to bring Israelis and Palestinians together. After two hours of bickering, the retired physician from Dana Point persuaded Israeli authorities to open the Erez border crossing Tuesday so he could personally deliver a dozen new surfboards for a Palestinian training center in the Gaza Strip.

SCULPTORS have an ability to see a work of art hidden inside an amorphous block of stone. Terry Martin has that X-ray vision. Only his medium is rigid foam, and inside each slab is a surfboard waiting to be liberated. On this day, Martin is studying a rectangle of polyurethane in his Dana Point workshop. It's a cramped closet redolent of resin, with deep-blue walls and slits of fluorescent light that cast the white foam in sharp relief.